It’s that time of year again, when the nonprofit advocacy organization Environmental Working Group publishes its annual list of the 12 fruits and vegetables most contaminated by pesticide residue. They’ve been publishing the Dirty Dozen (which hasn’t always gone by that name) since 1995, and it inevitably garners major media attention. And it’s thought to influence the purchasing decisions of millions of Americans.

I’m one of them.

Just in case the mere list itself doesn’t de facto freak you out, the EWG headlines its strawberry page: “Pesticides + Poison Gases = Cheap, Year-Round Strawberries.” They continue: “Strawberry growers use jaw-dropping volumes of poisonous gases to sterilize their fields before planting, killing every pest, weed and other living thing in the soil.”

For three years now, I’ve been buying organic strawberries, because strawberries have been the Dirty Dozen’s top offender. Cherries also made it into the top 12 this year, along with peaches, pears, grapes and tomatoes.